Your iPhone or Android Passcode Won’t Stop Government Snooping

We always recommend putting a passcode on your new phone or tablet in order to keep prying eyes out of the your smartphone. This is a great solution to keep random strangers from snooping on your contacts and private data, but it isn’t enough to keep security professionals from breaking in.

In the video below, a security company demonstrates how easy it is for a trained professional with the right software to discover your iPhone’s unlock code and then dump all of your data.

Update: The video was pulled since we originally published this article

The hack is provided by Micro Systemation, a security company that provides services to military and police forces across the world. With the XRY system, these entities can bypass the unlock codes on phones and harvest data.

Reportedly this process is performed in a manner similar to how jailbreaking exploits occur. If you are an experienced jailbreaker, you’ll recognize that the instructions place the iPhone into DFU mode to use the information and harvest the iPhone’s passcode.

Once cracked, Forbes says that the program provides access to the following information,

users GPS location

files

call logs

contacts

messages

even a log of its keystrokes

You don’t need to worry about a random stranger using this tool to get access to your data, but government agencies may have tools like XRY on hand to pry into your phone’s memory and your personal life.